Winner of The National Book Awards 2025 for Fiction
From the inimitable Rabih Alameddine - National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award - comes a tragicomic saga set in Lebanon, a modern story of family, memory, and the unbreakable (and insane) attachment of a son and his mother.
In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and 'the neighborhood homosexual,' Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's privacy as a personal affront. She craves nothing more than to know the ins and outs of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned.
When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja itching for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to leave behind.
Wickedly funny, heartbreaking, and told in Raja's irresistible voice, The True, True Story of Raja the Gullible dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities - a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, it's a wild and sparkling celebration of love.